A MEDDLING Jackdaw was vain enough to imagine that he wanted nothing but the colored plumes to render him as elegant a bird as the Peacock. Puffed up with this wise conceit, he dressed himself in some of their most beautiful feathers, and in this borrowed garb, forsaking his old companions, endeavored to pass for a Peacock; but he no sooner attempted to associate with these elegant birds, than an affected strut betrayed the vain pretender. The offended peacocks, plucking from him their degraded feathers, soon stripped him of his finery, reduced him to a mere Jackdaw, and drove him back to his brethren; by whom he was now equally despised, and justly punished with derision and contempt. Ye linger with the silver stars, And when the roar is done, Like victory flags o'er scattered fight, Still there, though rent and tempest hurled. Ye hover where the fervent earth A sadden'd silence fills, And, mourning o'er its stricken mirth, Ye weep along the hills Then how the wakening landscape thrills! AN EASTERN EVENING. EVENING comes on: arising from the stream, To scare the winged plunderers from their prey, Hark! at the Golden Palaces, The Bramin strikes the hour- For leagues and leagues around, the brazen sound RIDICULE. He that indulges himself in ridiculing the little imperfections and weaknesses of his friends, will in time find mankind united against him. The man who sees another ridiculed before him, though he may, for the present, concur in the general laugh, yet in a cool hour he will consider the same trick might be played against himself; but when there is no sense of this danger, the natural pride of human nature rises against him, who, by general censures, lays claim to general superiority. AMONG the vexations, our tempers to try, The fowl, that I speak of a fine-looking bird, - Was so plump and so fat, of white plumage profuse, But it was not sufficient, in her silly mind, From her more humble tribe- What a vain giddy goose! To the lake then she waddled, and joining the swan, An owl who sat near, for 't was late in the day, THE DEEP. THERE's beauty in the deep; — There's beauty in the deep. There's music in the deep: There's beauty in the deep. There's quiet in the deep:- |